This invention relates in general to a holding clip and, more particularly, to one that is adapted to be used for holding jewelry on a person and specifically for holding an earring onto a wearer's earlobe.
There are a number of known devices used for securing an earring to a wearer's ear. One type involves a pierced ear and employs a pin or post which extends through a hole in the earlobe and is retained by some known retaining mechanism. A second type is a well known screw and clamp arrangement in which the wearer screws a holding member against the inner ear and thus squeezes the lobe between the decorative portion of the earring and the clamp. There also is a known over-center or toggle type of mechanism which provides a clamping force to the earlobe to retain the earring.
The over-center or toggle type of arrangement is widely used and employs a holding loop which has legs that ride over cammed surfaces on an associated bracket. The cammed surface is essentially a V-shaped surface. The loop is in the form of a circular wire which is disposed for movement from a non-retaining state on one side of the V-shaped surface to a retaining state on the other side of the V-shaped surface. That is, as the loop moves from its non-retaining state and passes over the point or apex of the V, the loop is caused to ride down the cammed surface to its retaining state against the inner surface of the wearer's earlobe.
Because of the size of the design with very short camming surfaces (perhaps a 0.040 inch pitch achieved in a ninety degree rotation), there is substantial frictional sliding forces between the camming surface and the legs of the loop. This results in substantial wear on the line contact surface between the circular wire and the cammed surface. Because of the small amount of overall distance moved, this wear changes the geometry significantly and substantially degrades performance.
Another type of known over-center mechanism is a spring action clamp arrangement that is sometimes used with jewelry products. Again, in part because of the size of the device and because the nature of the leaf spring, substantial sliding friction exists which results in wear and degradation in terms of performance.
The purpose of this invention is to provide an improved earring holding device which meets a number of separate criteria for any such device to be effective. In order for the present earring holding device to supplant the well known and well tried devices in the marketplace it must have improved features from the point of view of reduced complexity, reduced number of parts, ease of assembly, minimum cost, small size and weight, aesthetic acceptability, comfort, adequate holding power and ease of use.
Accordingly, it is an object of this invention to provide an earring holding device which meets all of the above objectives and, by contrast with any one type of prior holding device, has improvement features representing most of the above criteria.
Because the problem of wear that occurs with the use of the two known over-center types of mechanisms; one employing a leaf spring and one employing two cammed surfaces, it is an important purpose of this invention to provide an improved device which has the simplicity of use of these two types of clamping mechanisms, and yet avoids the degradation due to wear as the holding device rides over the leaf spring or cams as the case may be.